Heartsick
by fridgewitch
Summary: An idea of what might have gone down in Derek's subconscious in episode 22 of season 3B- "De-Void"- as the nogitsune's fly infected him.


_Derrrek._

_Deeeeeerrrrrrek._

_Derek._

_Come on, sleepy puppy._

_Wakey- wakey._

_You don't wanna miss out on the fun, do you?_

Derek Hale opened his eyes; when the spots had faded, when the figure before him came into focus, he bit back a cry. It rose up from his throat and battered itself against his gritted teeth, but he held it down. Slowly, cautiously, he loosened his grip on it, and let a single, weighty word slip through.

"Stiles?"

The young man smiled back at him, a smile so gleeful and wretched Derek wondered that it hadn't sliced his face in two. Stiles Stalinski stood less than a yard away, hands stuffed cozily in the pockets of one of those damned sweatshirts he wore night and day, leaning forward ever so slightly and gazing up at him.

"Hi there," he said, as if he hadn't just escaped a company of highly trained killers and supernatural beings; as if he hadn't just thrown Derek around like a rag doll and sent his father into fits at the sight of his only child at gunpoint. As if he hadn't just fooled them all.

"I'm so happy you're awake," Stiles continued. "You're a little Sleeping Beauty when you want to be, aren't you, mister grumpy gus?" He reached a hand out towards Derek's face; Derek moved to block- and found himself paralyzed. Sinews flexed, muscles tensed, but nothing moved. For the first time he thought to survey his surroundings: he glanced down at his own body and realized that he was standing upright, metal cuffs clenched tight around his biceps and wrists, bolting him to the wall. Four more held his legs in place, and he felt the curve of another as it pulled against his abdomen. He glanced up, taking in the familiar scene of his very own living room, the pockmarked brickwork of the walls, the cool concrete expanse that was his floor. He scanned the room in a panic, desperately searching for a tool, an escape route, something. When he found nothing, his eyes met Stiles' again.

Those eyes were hungry and vicious in a way that Derek was all too familiar with- filled with all the smugness and pettiness and malice of a man who knew what power was, and knew that he had all of it.

That knife-like grin only grew wider; the thing that wasn't Stiles- couldn't be Stiles- gave a chuckle. "Oh come on Derek," he said, "you should be used to this kind of thing by now." His hand brushed softly against Derek's jaw- before pulling back and smacking him hard against the flesh of his cheek. And once again, a spiteful pat that rippled through his skull. Derek steeled himself and swallowed a snarl.

"You," he growled, "_You're_ the nogitsune."

"Good job, Derek! You want a treat for that, huh, smart boy?"

A roar erupted from Derek's throat, so loud it rattled the windowpanes. The nogitsune made a show of clearing out his ears.

"Well there's no need to be like that."

Derek strained at his bonds, muscles contorted with rage. "Take these off!" he bellowed. "_NOW!_"

"Uh, sorry, no," said the demon with a grimace. "Because then you would come after me and try to rip my face off, and I really don't feel like dealing with that right now."

"You seemed just fine with it a little while ago," Derek growled, pulling at the cuffs again. "You tossed me off of you like it was nothing. Nothing to stop you from doing it again." He released a deep, calming breath through his nose. "Cut me loose, and we can make it a fair fight."

"I don't really do 'fair"," the nogitsune chided. "Besides, I like this better. Gives us a chance to talk, maybe catch up a little bit." He stepped closer to Derek, almost brushing shoulders with him. Another toothy grin flashed across his face. "And a chance to break you."

Derek snorted. "What could you possible do to me?" he asked, the ghost of a smile on his lips. "What could you possible put me through that I haven't already suffered?"

The creature pursed his lips together, eyebrows stretching up towards his hairline. Slowly he shook his head.

"That was the wrong question to ask, little wolf."

"See, here's how you break someone, Derek." He placed a finger on Derek's chest- Derek hadn't even realized he'd been shirtless this whole time- and trailed it lazily around between his pectorals. "You search for a weak spot, a chink in their psychological armor." Every so often he'd jab at Derek's skin, as if testing its strength. "It could be a bad memory-" _Jab_. "-Repressed emotions-" _Jab_. "-_Guilt_." _Jab_. Derek winced as a nail pierced his flesh.

The fox's eyes lit up; a satisfied smile oozed across his face. "And then," he continued, digging his finger into the wound, "you pick at it." He began tearing the skin of Derek's chest away, every strip torn off sending the werewolf into convulsions of agony, ripping fresh screams from his throat. As he dug, the nogitsune kept talking.

"You pick at it, and pick at it, and pick and pick and pick _until_…"

Suddenly he stopped. Derek looked down at his decimated body, eyes welling with tears of pain and fury. At first all he saw was a mass of red, and the ragged edges of his own flayed skin. Then he noticed the fox's real prize in this spiteful game.

_Blub-dub. Blub-dub_.

The nogitsune licked his lips; his eyes narrowed in satisfaction.

"Until you get to the heart of it."

He took a step back to admire his handiwork. Derek's heart lay bare in front of him, beating wildly as he struggled against his panic, framed by blood-stained ribs and ribbons of flesh. Vaguely Derek thought of how impossible the situation was: Where was his sternum? How could he have lost so much blood and still be alive? But mostly his efforts were focused on staying conscious through the pain.

The thing in Stiles' body pressed a bloody hand to his lips, as if holding back a giggle. "Oh Derek," he cooed. "Now isn't that beautiful." He kneeled down, settling himself at eye level with the spasming muscle. "Just gorgeous," he went on, staring quizzically at the heart. "All those different textures. And you can't see it now, because of all the blood-" Derek gave a little shudder. "-But there's lots of different colors, too. Little flecks of yellow and blue from fat and veins." He gave a half nod, as if in approval, and looked up at the wolf.

"Yours is bigger than most I've seen." He sounded as if he were impressed. Then something animal flared in his eyes.

"It looks so fragile."

A low rumble pushed out from between Derek's lips.

The fox cocked his head.

I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't catch that."

"This is _fake_," Derek stated, loudly and clearly this time. "It's a trick." His brows furrowed as he stared the demon down. "Just another trick, in the hope that I'll do something, or say something, to get you what you want." He bared his fangs.

"But if I know the trick, then you've lost your power."

The nogitsune blinked up at him, eyebrows once again raised in mock surprise. A little smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Slowly he rose to meet Derek face to face, their eyes locked all the while.

"Y'know, Derek," he said with a flex of his fingers. "Just because you know why an earthquake happens, or how a tornado's formed-" His hand crept out towards Derek's chest. "-Doesn't mean that you can stop it."

"_Don't!_-" Derek cried. But all at once his breath was taken from him as those bony fingers brushed against his heart.

The world exploded in a symphony of screams- screams of anguish, screams of joy, screams of terror and outrage that curdled his blood and rattled his bones. A thousand different memories and sensations assaulted his body at once: he was neck deep in chlorine water; he was running full tilt through the forest, brush and branches snatching at his clothes and face. He was prostrate on the ground while at the same time warm and safe in his bed. He was falling, he was floating. He was everything he had ever been and would ever be, all in one instantaneous stretch of forever.

A vicious, bark-like laugh escaped Stiles' throat. "_Very_ fragile," the dark spirit chuckled, giving the organ a poke. He slid his hand softly behind Derek's heart, settling his fingers snugly between the arteries. "You know these hands, though, don't you?" He wriggled his fingers; Derek's eyes rolled back in his skull. "You remember every time you've ever seen them, felt them, though you wouldn't have thought about it. Hands that held you up, that reached out for you in comfort. Hands that worked tirelessly on your behalf, that took up arms to stand beside you in battle." Another wicked smile sliced his face in half.

"Have they been here all along?"

"Please," Derek gasped. "Please, just…"

"Just stop?" the demon asked. "Derek, buddy," he said, giving the heart a gentle squeeze, "we're just getting started."

Again Derek's voice was barely a whisper as it hit the nogitsune's ear. A scowl twisted Stiles' face into a mask of annoyance.

"That's getting really obnoxious, Derek," he spat. "You really need to _speak up-_"

"Just let him go," Derek managed. He was shuddering, limp against the cuffs that were by now the only things holding him up. It took all his strength to force his words out between ragged breaths. "Please… just leave him alone."

The fox fell silent. For a moment he could only stare at the ravaged young man before him, bleeding, broken, but somehow still fighting. Not for himself, no, but for the one person he probably didn't even realize he _wanted_ to fight for. For a scrawny, pale, sarcastic teenager currently locked away in his own mind, screaming in silence for help. A fact which only served to make the old demon angry.

His free hand wound itself into a fist without another thought. He swung his arm in a swift and savage arc, colliding his knuckles against Derek's chin. "You!" he screamed, eyes blazing. Every word was punctuated with another fist against Derek's face. "God! Damned! _Martyr_!" He pressed his chest against what remained of Derek's, stretching out his neck until his teeth were barely an inch from his stubble. Lips quivering with rage, he hissed at the wolf- "Always the hero, Derek- always the savior! Never a thought for yourself when someone else is in trouble! Just a noble hound that can never bite the hand!"

He pulled back, gazing with disgust at the now bruised face of his victim, his breath coming in spurts as he gathered his thoughts. He gave Derek's heart another squeeze, like a living stress ball. His fingers tensed and relaxed in time with each pump of the organ as he made his decision.

The smile returned to his face at last. He tightened his grip. "We'll have to fix that."

Then he wrenched Derek's heart from his chest.

There was no pain, no sudden, violent agony that comes with such an act. All Derek felt was a strange kind of ripple as the world shifted around him, a haze that left him lost in familiar spaces. He was in still in his loft, yet standing upright, no sign of the constraints that he'd just been released from.

In front of him was a table littered with chess pieces, the ones he'd hoped to decode the Stiles' message with. On the other side of it stood…

"Chris?" he stammered. Why was Allison's father in his house? Was this another trick? What was the nogitsune playing at?

"Derek," a soft voice called beside him.

He whipped around, only to find a distraught Stiles Stalinski at his side. No, not Stiles. He wouldn't fall for that again.

He lurched forward, teeth bared, claws out, a snarl on his lips, ready to shred the demon in front of him to ribbons. But something stopped him. It was his eyes. Sorrowful, desperate eyes, heavy with fear and worry. Those weren't the eyes of a demon; those were human. Those were Stiles'.

Derek took a step back. In the background he could hear Chris talking, explaining something to him, but the words were muffled. All he could focus on was Stiles.

"It's really you?" he asked, reaching a hand out to the boy. "It's Stiles in there?"

Stiles nodded. "It's me," he answered. "It's me, Derek. I don't know how, but I'm in control again. Let's just hope it stays that way."

"But how'd you-?" Derek started, still reaching out; Stiles pulled away.

"Derek, don't listen to him," he warbled, as if holding back tears. He glanced over at Chris on the opposite side of the room, still speaking with urgency, voice still muffled by some unknown force. "He's lying, Derek. You can't trust him."

The young werewolf followed his gaze. Chris was still talking, a look of concern etched into his face. He turned back to Stiles. "What are you talking about?" Derek glanced hesitantly back and forth between the two of them. "He's our ally, Stiles. He's more than proven that. He's not a threat."

"No, you can't trust him!" Stiles barked. "Any of them! Not him, not his daughter, none of his kind, Derek!"

"His kind- what are you talking about?"

"Hunters!" Stile's face was twisted in anguish and rage. "They can _never_ be allies! Derek, think about what they've done to your people, to your _family_." He gazed at Derek in earnest.

"That wasn't him," Derek explained, uneasiness rising in his stomach, "and he's not responsible for that."

"They're all alike, Derek! Whatever they don't like, or they can't understand, they destroy!"

"Stiles-"

"_He tried to shoot me, Derek!_"

Something tightened in Derek's chest. He struggled for breath.

"What-" he gasped, turning to face Chris. "What should I do then?"

Stiles licked his lips.

"Burn him."

Before he knew what had happened, Derek somehow found himself standing over a bound and struggling Chris Argent, pouring lighter fluid over every inch of his body. Chris was still speaking, slowly, as if to a child, still trying to explain something to Derek. But it didn't matter what he was saying; it was all lies anyway. He was so busy dousing his captive that he failed to notice Stiles standing off to the side, clutching a curious hunk of meat in his hands.

"That's right, Derek," he cooed, gripping the pulsing muscle tightly. "He burns your family, you burn his."

"You burn my family," Derek told the hunter, "and I burn yours."

The nogitsune smiled. "That's the spirit."


End file.
